


No Price Too High

by forgetmequite



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 00:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15084737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetmequite/pseuds/forgetmequite
Summary: Magnus Bane destroys a city.





	No Price Too High

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be an attempt at a more action-y fic, but it didn't quite work out that way so action 1, feelings 7 and Lizzie 0. Better luck next time @ me.

The call came in at around nine in the evening, as Magnus was settling in and considering his options for a reality TV show he’d like to catch up on, his dinner already piping hot on the table nearby.

“Alexander!” he answered as he was checking his gin bottle. He should stock up. “I was just thinking about texting you.”

But Alec’s voice was all business, tinged with regret. “This is a work call, I’m sorry, Magnus.”

Magnus put down the bottle. It seemed his quiet night in, with or without Alec’s company, was not going to happen. “I see. Go on.”

“We got a tip about a surviving Circle cell with a base upstate, and I’m putting together a team to raid it. On behalf of the Institute, we would be grateful if you’d consider joining it. I know it’s none of your concern, but we’d appreciate the reinforcement. There will of course be payment.”

Magnus smiled at Alec’s official choice of words. He had half a mind to ask if Alec was reading some sort of communications manual straight at him, until an unwelcome thought wiped the smile off his face. “Isn’t this something you should call the High Warlock about?”

“No.” Magnus could well imagine Alec’s determined look that usually accompanied that tone. “This is something you call the most powerful person you know about. That’s always going to be you.”

Alec’s words sunk into his skin, warm and comfortable. Who’d have thought he’d ever actually feel happy to receive a request of assistance from a shadowhunter? “Well then, my usual rates apply. I’ll portal over in a second.”

Before he’d even finished the call, a snap of his fingers had switched out his comfortable lounging clothes into a crisp and subtly practical ensemble as well as touched up his make-up and hair. He was going into enemy territory; it was always good practice to put his most untouchable foot forward in such a situation.

 

Magnus found Alec in the ops centre, surrounded by a small team of Shadowhunters and a warlock fiddling with her sleeves.

“Marisa,” he greeted her, giving her a smile.

She returned the gesture, still a bit nervous. Considering where they were, Magnus was not surprised.

“Ms Rodrigues has visited the place where the Circle established a base,” Alec said before Magnus could enquire, “so she has kindly agreed to portal us straight there.”

Magnus nodded. It made sense; Marisa was a lovely woman with a wonderful knack for finding rare potions ingredients, but if Magnus had ever had to situate her in a battlefield, it would have been in the hospital tent next to a cauldron.

“Very well.” He raised an eyebrow. “Shall we move somewhere more private to create the portal?”

Alec’s face didn’t betray if he caught Magnus’s intention, simply nodding as he led them down a corridor, but Marisa’s eyes were grateful when they caught Magnus’s. Maybe Alec had, though, because he eventually came to a halt under a tree outside the Institute.

“The cell is small,” Alec told Magnus. The rest of the team had probably heard it while they waited for him. “But their base is in an abandoned city, so they’ll have plenty of cover and home ground advantage. We’re not expecting to be able to take prisoners.”

Magnus arched an eyebrow. “Do they have any?”

“As far as we know, no. But it’s certainly a possibility. If it turns out they do, getting them out is obviously number one priority. Otherwise, it’s not letting anyone escape.”

Magnus nodded. There was nothing in the instructions that he hadn’t already known.

Alec moved on from briefing Magnus into commands for the rest of the team.

“Underhill, you’ll stay here with Ms Rodrigues. Monitor communications.” Underhill nodded, but Alec had already moved on to look at Marisa. “Ms Rodrigues, please.”

Marisa created the portal, and Alec marched into it. Magnus followed suit.

On the other side, the world was bleak. Around them towered the concrete skeletons of what had once been apartment blocks, now covered in patches of moss. The pavement under Magnus’s feet had been cracked, and hay was pushing through. If he glanced around quickly, it almost looked like they were standing on a meadow.

“You take me to the nicest of places,” Magnus said, turning to Alec.

Alec cracked a smile. “I’ll pick you a bouquet of dandelions once we’re done.”

“They’re not in season.” Magnus pointed at another crack a little away from them. “See. Even the seeds have already blown off.”

“Romance is dead and the wind killed it,” Izzy said, the last one to come through the portal. “Are we far from the base?”

Alec pointed past one building. “Quarter of a mile in that direction if our intel is accurate. It might not be. Stay alert.”

Several runes activated and a few spells cast, they started their careful trek as clandestinely as possible. In the terrain, that was not very; the streets were wide, the only cover provided by buildings that appeared too labyrinthine to pass through, and the debris and plant life was too small to do anything but slow them down.

The part of Magnus’s mind that was not carefully monitoring potential signs of danger was very busily composing the snarkiest remarks to aim at Alec once they’d get back home about how Magnus had hoping for a much more pleasant evening in his company.

Izzy, in front of the group, halted suddenly, and quietly pointed at something ahead of them. There, up above, light was coming out of a window of a building that looked a lot like the one they’d portalled next to. Quickly, Alec ducked behind the nearest corner, the rest of them following suit.

“Rather accurate, after all,” Alec said. “Okay. We don’t know how many of them there are, or if they’re all insi-“

Magnus, leaning against the wall, noticed something above Clary’s head that made his heart skip a beat.

“They’re not,” he interrupted, nodding towards the building they’d just passed.

There, with a clear line of sight to where they were, one solitary window radiated with slivers of light that Magnus would swear on his life had not been there just a minute ago.

“We need to get out of here,” Alec said, right as they heard the sound of moving air as something was flung out the window.

The projectile hit the ground several metres away from them and smashed into pieces. It didn’t take even a second to see its purpose, though; the demons it released lunged at them. Magnus banished two with ease, and by the time he was done, Alec was already standing bow in hand, looking at the spot where the final demon had been before he’d shot through it.

“Fuck,” Izzy swore softly. “Just a heads-up, I saw another window light up.”

Magnus eyed the spot they were in, against a bare concrete wall with no cover. They were sitting ducks, which was probably what these relics of the Circle had wanted all along. But then again, what was a wall to a warlock? He could see the same thought form in Alec’s eyes, and Alec stepped away from the wall as Magnus blasted it with magic, and suddenly the bare wall was decorated with a hole large enough to walk through.

“Can your magic find out if there are any hostages?” Alec asked as they all rushed into whatever safety a building possibly crawling with Circle members might provide.

Magnus pursed his lips, fixing the wall after them with a snap of his fingers. “I can find out if there are any Downworlders.”

Alec nodded. “That’s good enough. I’ve no reports of missing shadowhunters.”

“Step aside.”

The space around him was suddenly empty, and Magnus wasted no time in gathering up his magic and channelling it into the concrete under him. The floor under them shook a little with the sudden influx of power. In the ground, the magic wasn’t visible, but he could feel it spread beyond their current location, far and wide, until it reached the thick forests that had to be beyond what had been the city limits.

It was a taxing spell, but Magnus showed no sign of fatigue as he let it fade.

“Thirteen shadowhunters,” he said, looking straight at Alec. “Spread wide around us. No Downworlders. They’d definitely prepared to ambush us.”

“Thirteen,” Alec said. “Okay. Unless we get evidence to the contrary, we’ll have to assume they’re all hostile.”

Magnus swallowed, but the shadows hid it from everyone else. There was an uncomfortable feeling in his gut. Not of defeat; he’d faced the Circle many a time, and of the two of them, he wasn’t the one that was on his last legs and about to die out. No, of something that often felt far worse. Of that unnameable feeling that told him there was a thing to do, and he was the only one fit to do it.

“We’re going to have to split up,” Alec was saying.

“Alexander,” Magnus said, his throat constricting. “You know that I value your leadership skills.”

In the dim light of the room, Alec’s frown was barely different from his usual expression. “I do.”

“Then, please, don’t take this as a personal offence.”

He breathed in deeply, ignored the puzzled stares aimed at him and created first the portal and then the strong and very localised gust of wind that pushed all of them into it until Magnus was standing alone in the wreck of a building they’d used for cover. He buried the ache in his heart and glanced out into the former street, steeling himself for the spell.

This was the fastest way to end this, Magnus told himself. It was also the only scenario he could imagine where no one he cared for got hurt.

Slowly, he counted to three in his head and began casting. The demonic language felt foreign in his mouth at first, rusty from centuries of disuse, but as the spell began to gain power, Magnus’s mouth remembered it and the words flew out almost out of his control.

The earth began trembling first, and then the concrete around him began to crack, loud like thunder but muffled to Magnus because he wasn’t listening, he was concentrating his full power on the spell. Outside, the broken windows shattered further and shrieks of pain were shouted as the buildings began to crumble around the Circle members trapped in them. Magnus paid attention to none of that. The only thing breaking his total concentration was the nagging feeling that somewhere in hell, Asmodeus was watching and smiling. Remembering the last time Magnus had used this spell. A whole city had died then, too. His magic had ground it into dust, as it was doing to this one. Magnus continued casting even as fatigue began to creep over him, his magic sweeping over everything except one tiny dot in the whole sprawling infrastructure that his magic, even this brand of it, recognised and refused to harm. Around him, the pulverised concrete was slowly drifting to the ground, layering it and him with a fine grey coat until almost everything around him was that ash-looking dust, interspersed with occasional larger lumps of concrete or metal supports sticking out from the ground.

Magnus fell to his knees, the exhaustion of the spell taking its toll on him. The movement sent up a small cloud of dust. The ground was warm, the magical energy having heated the material it had ground down. It might have felt nice in other circumstances, but to Magnus, feeling overheated and fatigued by the spell, it felt a lot like Hell. If the landscape had only been redder, he might have thought he was in Edom again.

The rumble of the rapidly gathering rainclouds broke the illusion, though. It never rained in Edom, not water, anyhow. And it wasn’t natural rain now, either; the spell he’d used had disrupted weather patterns, essentially summoning up a storm that no one could have foreseen or prepared for.

He felt like there was no energy left in him, but nevertheless, Magnus raised his hands, reached deep into the depths of his psyche to tap into an energy reserve he normally wasn’t even aware existed, and dispelled the storm, forcing the air above him and the condensing water and the electricity back into the order it had been in before a crumbling city had set it on a path to further destruction.

The clouds parted, Magnus collapsed. He had no energy left to brace himself for the unforgiving ground, and barely registered that he fell against something softer that felt pleasant as it encircled him.

With Alec’s frantic cries of Magnus’s name echoing around his head, he lost the final shreds of his consciousness and drifted away.

\---

Magnus woke up slowly, the fog of exhaustion gradually thinning in his brain and eventually fading away. He was lying on something soft, but soft like satin, probably his own bed. Disappointingly, the sheets were not accompanied by Alec’s embrace, the last thing Magnus thought he remembered about his ordeal. Eventually, his strength returned enough for Magnus to blink his eyes open, and he was instantly rewarded with the sight of Alec sitting by the bedside. There was an open book in his hands, but Alec looked up mere seconds after Magnus noticed him, so it was doubtful whether he’d actually turned a page during the entire time he’d sat there.

Relief broke over Alec’s face. “You’re awake.”

Magnus smiled. “I’ve told you, you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Alec’s face grew more serious, and Magnus dropped his gaze on the floor, the full weight of the situation suddenly dropping into his consciousness. Alec had come to get him, afterwards, so he must have seen the havoc Magnus had created, had had to walk through the rubble to even get to Magnus at all.

It was one thing to know that Magnus was capable of such destruction, and entirely another to see it with his own eyes.

At least Alec was still here, he tried to tell himself. That had to count for something.

He could feel that Alec was watching him, but he refused to meet Alec’s eye.

“Are you okay?”

Magnus’s gaze flew up to Alec’s face, and then dropped back down as soon as he realised what he’d done.

“Why are you asking me _that_?”

“I saw what you accomplished,” Alec said. Magnus couldn’t read his tone. “And you were exhausted enough to black out. I was worried enough to call Catarina to check up on you.”

Alec stood up abruptly, Magnus could see his feet move away from the bed, and that was the first thing about this conversation that made sense to him. Alec’s sock-clad feet came back, though, and as he crouched down next to the bed, Magnus’s eyes drew up involuntarily.

They landed on the small, bright yellow and inexpertly crafted bouquet of dandelions that Alec was offering him.

“I thought you might feel lousy after that magic loss,” Alec said, his smile a mix of hopefulness and being pleased with himself, “and I thought these would make you smile.”

He never wanted to deny Alexander anything, but at the moment, all Magnus could manage was barely concealed shock.

He had no idea how he could get his mouth to spill out the words. “I destroyed an entire city, and your first thought is to bring me flowers?”

Alec’s face did something complicated, as if he’d been prepared to have a completely different sort of conversation and now physically shifted gears to adjust to Magnus’s reaction. Eventually, though, his face set into conviction.

“My first thought was to make sure you’re okay. The flowers came after that.”

Magnus watched his certainty, feeling ridiculously vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with his still recovering strength.

“Why? You saw what I did.”

Alec laid down the dandelion bouquet and reached for Magnus’s hand. Alec’s fingers were always a little rough, archery calluses and non-existent skin care made sure of that, but his touch was so often so gentle it made a part of Magnus want to cry.

He couldn’t control it, could only feel the tears spring into his eyes.

“Asmodeus taught me that spell, did you know that?” he said, almost choking on the name but the rest of it spilling out like he couldn’t even stop it if he wanted to. “I used it, because he asked. Except that city was not abandoned and I portalled no one out of there. I did that, to thousands of people.”

He stopped for breath and Alec took the chance to speak into the silence, as if Magnus hadn’t just confessed to cold-blooded murder. “And today, you exhausted yourself and took on a great burden to make sure no one else had to risk their life.”

Magnus opened his mouth to protest, but Alec raised his hand as if to stall him, and the words didn’t get out of Magnus’s throat.

“I don’t know everything that you did with Asmodeus, and I probably never will. There’s probably huge chunks of your life that I’ll never know about, and I’m fine with that. You have endless layers, and I love that about you.”

Magnus looked down, away from Alec’s eyes, and wondered why he couldn’t just enjoy having this, why Alec made him drop carefully cultivated defences that would have been better kept in place.

“Don’t you ever fear what happens when you peel back a layer that makes me lose control?”

“I was there, today.” Alec’s hand left Magnus’s, but only for a second as he cradled the side of Magnus’s face and tilted Magnus’s chin up. “While you were casting that spell. It took a while to convince Marisa to portal me back, but not that long. It didn’t hurt me. You were set on burning the whole place to the ground, but your magic didn’t touch me. So no, I don’t fear anything when I’m with you. My biggest fear is losing you.”

Magnus had no words; he could barely chance glances at Alec’s eyes. The tips of Alec’s fingers were stroking the side of his head in small movements, and bizarrely, the only thing Magnus’s thoughts managed to focus on was wondering if the short hairs there felt rough to Alec’s gentle hands.

He only realised he was crying when Alec pulled his head against the soft material of his shirt and Magnus was weeping into his shoulder. It felt odd, he couldn’t remember when he’d last let someone see him cry properly, not just a few escaped tears, but he also couldn’t escape the odd feeling of rightness, like somehow his body knew that Alec would be there to support him even when Magnus’s mind couldn’t properly grasp it.

Magnus had no idea how long it continued. He only knew that eventually, he’d cried his tears and it began to feel awkward to keep his head buried against Alec’s shoulder.

This was the worst part of any relapse: realising what a mess you’d made and having to continue on among the wreckage.

Even if the wreckage was just pretending you didn’t have to use all of your strength to look up to meet your boyfriend’s eye.

Alec was many precious things, but he was never going to be the choice that made things easy. That was only made more obvious as Alec asked, even as he kept his hand steady at Magnus’s side, “Do you want to talk about it? Asmodeus?”

In other circumstances, Magnus would have assumed the question was at least partially motivated by sheer curiosity about what there was to talk about, but Alec had already surprised him on that front. That probably just made it worse; Magnus had centuries of practice navigating other people’s desires regarding information about his parentage and dodging questions he didn’t want to answer, but he’d never spent much time thinking about what he himself might want to share about it. The default answer had always been ‘nothing at all’.

“No,” he said eventually. “I have never wanted to talk about it. It is a painful period of my life that still keeps me up at night sometimes. But you should know,” the words felt like shards of glass in his mouth, “I destroyed a town full of people then, and that’s not the worst thing I’ve done for him.”

“You were a child.”

Magnus looked away. “I was well past my teens when I banished Asmodeus to Edom. How old are you again, and would you use that to excuse your actions?”

Alec breathed in and out deeply. “No, I would not. I look at how I was raised and I see that a lot of the bad stuff I have done stemmed from that, but that’s not an excuse. What defines me is how I grow up to be. And what defines you is that you grew up to be the most amazing, compassionate, lovable person I’ve ever met.”

Magnus never knew quite how to react to these eager, beautiful declarations of Alec’s; he had centuries of practice in gracefully accepting praise, but something about Alec’s words left him feeling bared and vulnerable in a way nothing could prepare him for. Eager to avoid looking into Alec’s eyes, Magnus’s gaze fell on the flowers now abandoned on the bed.

“How did you even find dandelions in bloom this time of the year?”

Alec laughed, his thumb brushing over Magnus’s knuckles. “Ms Rodrigues. You think I didn’t know I was bothering the foremost apothecary and rare ingredients expert in New York City with a minor transportation request? I regret wasting her time, but we had no record of any other warlock who could portal us that close.”

Magnus’s mouth curved upwards. “She charged you through the nose for that bouquet, didn’t she?”

Alec’s eyes sparkled. “It did make you smile, and there’s no price too high for that.”

Magnus could still feel the magical exhaustion in his bones, but he didn’t need to stop resting to enjoy this.

“Did you know, when you called today, all I wanted was to have dinner while catching up on those Housewife shows?”

Alec smiled, squeezing Magnus’s hand. “We can still do that. I’ll order take-out.”

“Ethiopian?”

Alec kissed Magnus’s forehead before scrambling off the bed. “Sure.”

Magnus laid back, watching Alec head for the shelf with the take-out menus and start rifling through for the right one. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe, still, that there was no layer to him that would scare Alec away if exposed. But Alec kept proving him wrong every time Magnus assumed he’d found one, and that was good enough.

And cuddling up with Alec to watch mindless TV and enjoying a belated dinner was definitely better than good enough. Maybe it was just Magnus’s tired body, but it felt very near perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/forgetmequite)!


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